Mexican Officials Charged with Murder for Prison Riot Turned Massacre

AFP/ Francisco Cobos15 Feb 2016

Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas and Coahuila to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by Ciudad Victoria’s “M.A. Navarro”, Reynosa’s “A.C. Del Angel” and Breitbart Texas’ Ildefonso Ortiz

Three top ranking prison officials are now facing as many as 49 murder charges for allegedly having been complicit in the prison riot turned massacre at the Topo Chico prison in Monterrey Nuevo Leon.

During an online streamed news conference Nuevo Leon’s Attorney General Roberto Flores announced the three arrests. Prison warden Gregoria Salazar Robles, and sub-warden Fernando Dominguez Jaramillo have each been charged with murder charges as well as abuse of official authority for their role in the case, Flores said. Prison guard Jose Reyes has only been charged with one murder count.

Another discrepancy in the case deals with the bodies of four men killed in the riot who were not even inmates.

“We do not who they are or know what they were doing there,” Flores said. “ They entered illegally.

As previously reported by Breitbart Texas, earlier this week two rival factions within Los Zetas cartel went to war inside the prison facility which houses more than 3,000 inmates.

One of the factions was led by Jorge Ivan “El Credo” Hernandez Cantu a top Zeta enforcer and the other by Juan Pedro “Z-27” Saldivar who has been charged in connection with the murder ofAmerican tourist David Hartley, Breitbart Texas previously reported.

Comandante Credo

Born in Reynosa, Hernandez Cantu grew up in the Lopez Portillo neighborhood where he began his criminal career as a foot soldier for the Gulf Cartel. At the time, Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel were one and the same and Reynosa was under the command of top Zeta boss Jaime “El Hummer” Gonzalez Duran.

“Credo” climbed his way to commander within the “Reynosa Guard” and ended up becoming a sworn enemy of Gulf Cartel commander Cleofas Alberto “Wero Cleofas” Martinez. When the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas split up in 2010, Credo sided with Los Zetas while Cleofas sided with the Gulf Cartel. Surprisingly enough, Credo’s younger brother Tony Hernandez sided with the Gulf Cartel.

As the war between the two sides worsened, Cleofas made the fight personal by killing Tony and hanging his body outside of his family’s laundromat. Cleofas also burned down two houses that belonged to Credo, one was where his mother lived.

Comandante Credo who ended up being the commander for the rural town of San Fernando was forced to pull back into Monterrey in 2010 as the fighting between the two cartels worsened. Once in Monterrey, the top brass within Los Zetas gave him control over Monterrey where he led the charge during the fiercest battles for control of the city. Credo was arrested in 2012 and had been charged with 48 murders and two kidnappings.

Z-27

Juan Pedro Saldivar better known as Z-27 was born to a low income family from Nueva Ciudad Guerrero, Tamaulipas; an area that has become a highly sought after drug corridor. Before joining the Gulf Cartel, Saldivar worked as a ranch hand in the area. He was recruited by long time Gulf Cartel commander Juan Reyes “R1” Mejia.

Over time, Saldivar worked the border area and began to have more and more contact with top Zeta boss Miguel Trevino Morales better known as Z-40or El-40.Under Trevino’s leadership Saldivar learned the extreme violent tactics that became synonymous with Los Zetas.By 2010, Saldivar was in charge of the area known as the “Frontera Chica” which spans from the border city of Ciudad Guerrero to Ciudad Acuna. meaning that Los Zetas had control of the border region from Western Tamaulipas into Nuevo Leon and Coahuila. When the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas split up, Saldivar ended up being at odds with his friend and recruiter R-1.

After the arrest of Credo in 2012, Saldivar or Z-27 took over Monterrey where he ruled with an iron fist until his arrest in 2014. In keeping with the tradition of brutality, law enforcement officials single out Saldivar as a man with a thirst for blood who has been known to kill for amusement purposes. As previously reported by Breitbart Texas, Saldivar has been charged in the death of U.S. tourist David Hartley who was gunned down while riding a pair of jet ski’s in Falcon Dam.